


Brown Paper Crush

by counterheist



Series: porno au [a.k.a. extra meaty] [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, porno au, stupid jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-18
Updated: 2012-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 11:30:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Romano Vargas is a (<i>101% heterosexual</i>) gay porn star. His interests include not sucking cock, not taking it up the ass, and interior design. Not that anybody ever asks about his interests; until one day, on some dumbass book tour, somebody does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brown Paper Crush

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zieb](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=zieb).



> For [zieb](http://zieberich.tumblr.com/), whose appreciation and [art for this universe](http://zieberich.tumblr.com/post/19233143470/kids-some-of-you-might-remember-the-first-time) are both very inspirational.

Porn stars don’t normally have book signings, but porn stars don’t normally have multi-billion euro production companies either. Romolo Vargas is special, according to industry statistics, and also according to the glossy color posters splashed across every available surface in Geneva Fetish Boutique and seventeen other select sex shops on his European signing tour. Technically the posters say ‘Special: the Romolo Vargas Story’ but mincing words is not what’s made Romolo into the man he is today, not by a long shot, and the sentiment is the same. Geneva is the third stop on his tour and just like the others the venue is packed with people of every taste imaginable. There are men in hot pink corsets and women in chaps and one mildly hawkish-looking housewife who has been eyeing one older lesbian couple for the past thirty minutes. As he settles into his plush red and gold chair, Romolo winks at her. She grins back.

That’s what Romolo likes to see.

Because, as he tells reporters in interviews, his staff in meetings, his actors on set, and his audience here in Geneva: everyone is special too.

It’s a stupid line, but predictably everybody laps it up like so much chocolate body paint. In the back of the crowd Romano Vargas snorts to himself every time he hears that godawful phrase and hopes this will all be over soon. Special? More like special in the head. “I’m leaving after the speech is over,” he mutters to his left.

Feliciano, his brother, whispers back, “no you aren’t,” before throwing an encouraging smile at a trio of college-aged boys who have turned at the noise. He motions for them to go back to listening, yes, it’s all fine, we’ll be quiet now, and Romano snorts again. This whole show is a joke.

“It’s not like the old bastard needs me here,” Romano grumbles.

“He does, Roma,” Feli shoots back. “We’re both in the book a lot, and he wants people to meet us.”

True, they are both featured in the book. Romano knows he even has a quote or ten, because his old man might be a jackass, yes, but he’s a sentimental jackass.

A large part of Romolo’s reasoning behind writing a book was to show his fanbase all the facets of his life. Since he doesn’t act anymore, hasn’t for a while, the largest facet is surprisingly his family, although defining it that way is sleight of hand. Of Vargas Films Ltd’s staff, including actors and technicians and editors and even the guy who goes and buys all the goddamned condoms, only thirty-nine percent _aren’t_ related in some way to CEO, director, producer, and founder Romolo Vargas. ( _Most of those thirty-nine percent are actors, too, because Vargas Films has a strict policy against making Romano have to fuck a cousin. Officially it has a different name, but that’s how Romano thinks of it._ ) The industry is Romolo’s life, and he makes it the life of everyone he knows whether they want it to be or not. It’s hard to turn down that kind of money, especially when that kind of money is coming from your famous uncle, or your famous second cousin, or your famous old bastard of a father.

Romano still doesn’t know how he feels about that, but most of his life has been made up of his old man’s stupid choices, so why should his career be any different? Take his name: he’s got three of them and they’re all stupid. His real one isn’t even worth mentioning, the masculine form of the name of some beach where his old man knocked up his mom. He shudders to think what they would have called him if they’d been doing it anywhere else. Parking lot? Restaurant bathroom? Who fucking names a kid after the place he was conceived?

His stage name is the _Italian Stallion_ and he knows people only use it to make fun of him. He doesn’t remember when he got it, or even why his old man insists on calling it a stage name instead of a porn pseudonym like it really is, just knows that people only use it when they’re laughing.

Bastards.

His third name is what everybody, even family, calls him. It’s based on the fact that his old man was ‘the Gladiator’ back in the day, along with a little bit of the fantastic Italian Porn Dynasty logic he’s grown to really, really wish had nothing to do with him. Romano isn’t such a bad name, though, so he goes with it. As long as they aren’t calling him The Filly anymore then he’s thankful no matter what.

Feliciano, in his turn, got off easy. He’s Feli at home and Feli at work, except for when the female actors call him ‘cutie’, and he’s Feli everywhere else too. Feli doesn’t have to deal with horse jokes. Feli also gets to work with the female actors at all, which still pisses Romano off, because Romano… Romano lasted all of two weeks after his eighteenth birthday on the straight porn circuit. It wasn’t that Romano was gay, which he wasn’t and isn’t, or pining for cock, which he certainly wasn’t and is _not_. But despite his boasts and the considerable amount of machismo he definitely inherited, the Italian Stallion faltered whenever a lady tried to ride him in front of the camera, and when that’s the whole damn point…

He just— he got embarrassed. Gets. That’s the only way Romano knows how to put it. He gets embarrassed when he gets any further than first base with a woman and his hands just _stop_. Romolo said, ‘it’s fine,’ said, ‘your brother can handle those for now,’ and five years later Romano is still doing gay porn, and still not gay.

He likes to make that point clear.

“I don’t want to meet any of them,” he says, and because of that Feli grabs his wrist and won’t let go until their father has finished dispensing his prepared anecdote from chapter seven. One or two losers in the crowd notice this even though Romano tried to pick the most unobtrusive spot to wait from; he hopes they aren’t the twins type. Romolo shot down having his sons do any work together on principle, but Romano doesn’t want anybody to have the chance to put the question to him a second time. Romano loves his brother, but if he has to see Feli’s cock any more than he already does he will _scream_.

Soon Romolo’s giving his last joke, and Romano doesn’t have to think about the losers with the twin fetish anymore because the shop owner is shoving Feli and him to the front table. The owner is a short man, with a severe blond haircut and short-heeled boots that occasionally step on the toes of starry-eyed patrons who don’t get out of the way fast enough. If they had met under different circumstances, and the owner hadn’t been tasked with rushing Romano to his certain boring doom, Romano thinks he’d like this guy. They look at the crowd with the same kind of cautious disdain. It’s not smart not to like the people who keep you in Armani, but that doesn’t mean you have to love them.

Still, Romano rolls his eyes when the owner deposits Feli on Romolo’s left side and Romano on his right. They don’t get chairs behind the signing table. Instead they’re left to stand awkwardly next to the piles and piles of books and the cartons of pens and bottles of water there for when Romolo gets thirsty. Or tired of his current pen, or… or whatever those are supposed to be for. Feli picks up a green marker just as Romano’s making jokes about how his old man can’t be more than two feet away from something penis-shaped at all times, and then Romano starts to wonder if…

Yes.

Some of the people in line have DVDs.

No one told Romano that people would have DVDs.

In fact, whenever Romano asked, everyone told Romano that this was a book signing _only_ , no, you won’t have to talk to anybody, just smile, or if they look like the type then glare at them, most of your fans love that, yes, just like that, oh and give them the finger, exactly, just like now! But it turns out that everyone lied to Romano and he picks up an angry red pen just as his father spreads his arms wide to welcome the line forward.

“I’m going to shove a spear up your shriveled old ass,” Romano whispers, between fake-sneers at the dumbstruck twenty-something twink in front of him. The kid, who can’t be any older than Romano is, licks his lips and adjusts his designer sweater vest before thrusting out one of Romano’s first flicks. Black and white, single handheld camera, only a hundred copies made. How predictable.

“Don’t break the incest policy, Roma,” Romolo shoots back, “…but I’ll make a note of that for my next artistic development meeting. You’ve never done a period film before, have you?”

Asshole.

No, Romano hasn’t done any period films because those are _stupid_ , and if he ever did all anyone would be able to talk about is how Romano’s following in Romolo’s footsteps now. Not that five years of fucking guys on camera for money are anything like Romolo’s path, oh no, it doesn’t count unless Romano does it in a toga. Fuck them. Fuck their togas too. Romano hates those things because they are stupid, and _tacky_ , and if they put him in one he will seriously rip Romolo a new one.

Bloodbaths and togas are the only things Romano can keep his mind on for a while, and eventually the line starts to dwindle in a haze of glares that are more real than fake, and red pen, and jewel cases hastily pulled out of brown paper bags. About ten minutes before the owner whispers that he’s kicking everyone out, two men step from the head of the line to the signing table. One of them has white hair and red contacts, and the other has the sappiest expression on his face that Romano has seen all day. They head towards the other end of the table first, and Feli lets them both shake his hand and tells the one with the contacts what it’s like to work with a woman who has all-natural J cups. Sappy blandly drifts away once Feli, gesturing with his hands, starts talking about Yekaterina’s horrible back pains. Romolo winks at Sappy, and Romano hopes he won’t have to talk to either of these idiots, but then Sappy draws a deep breath and heads straight for him.

“You’re the Italian Stallion, aren’t you?” he asks in all seriousness, probably the only person to use that name without snickering, and Romano wants to kill the grown man giggling next to him. His father is such a fucking asshole. “I’m Antonio.”

“Call me Romano,” Romano responds, because he doesn’t care about pleasantries, but he does care about no one ever calling him that name again. “My father can sign your book when you’re ready.”

This, curiously, makes Sappy— Antonio blush. He has to have a book, he can’t have forgotten it anywhere; one of the rules for getting to be in the line is you have to buy a book first. Then the shop owner is happy because he gets a cut of the sales, and Romolo is happy because he gets the rest, and Romano is happy because it minimizes any signing or talking that he has to do.

“I, oh, I,” Antonio looks at the hardcover in his left hand with surprise, as though someone had put it there when he’d been distracted by something else. “I forgot about that. Do you mind if I don’t? I really didn’t come here to, I mean I wasn’t aiming to come here at first, but Gil wanted to and then I thought it might be fun because this is your studio and then I saw you sitting in the back and Gil wanted to talk to your brother and your father and ask how many of the boobs they get to touch are real, but I saw you were signing things too so I ran back to our apartment and my bag only holds so many but can you, can, can you sign these please?”

Romano bends back from the waist when six worn jewel cases are shoved in his face by a suddenly-flushed Sappy. Antonio. “Y-yeah, fine,” he stutters out. It’s not often that someone comes to an event only for _him_. But this guy said his boyfriend was the one with the actual idea to come. Romano knows better than anyone that there’s a distinct difference between fantasy and real life, and even if this guy gets boners for Romano in fake pizza delivery uniforms having fake gay sex, Romano knows that that doesn’t mean much. “You want me to write them all out to you,” he nods over at Contacts, “or do you want me to write something for your boyfriend too?”

“Boyfriend,” Antonio does a double-take, “what boyfr-- _Gil?_ No, no, he, _**no**_. Gil’s my roommate.”

Romano raises his eyebrows.

“I’m single.”

And keeps them raised.

“Not that I’m hitting on you!”

And says nothing.

“Not that I wouldn’t if I didn’t think you’d say no!”

And puffs out his cheeks before scribbling a short ‘To Antonio –Romano Vargas’ on each of the cases in his hands. Of course Romano gets the weird ones. If he didn’t only get the weird ones then the universe would probably implode. “Sure.”

“I didn’t—”

This is when Romolo decides is the best time to intervene. “Antonio, did you say it was? How do you know he’ll say no? My son has very discerning tastes,” there are those giggles again, Romolo can call them chuckles all he wants but that’s a bald fucking lie, “but you look like a lucky man.”

When he says ‘lucky’ his eyes linger on Antonio’s thighs, and Romano feels dirty by association. “Don’t listen to that old pervert,” he says, “I’m done with your DVDs.” Romano motions for Antonio to take them, and he does, shoving them along with his copy of Special into a big brown paper bag. The bags came with the books, and Romano thinks they are just as stupid as any of his father’s other ideas.

But Romolo isn’t content leaving it at that. “I’m not just a pervert, Roma, I’m the pervert king here,” he winks, “and you didn’t even ask Antonio here what his favorite movie of yours is! I thought I taught you to be more polite than that.” He turns to Antonio, a conspirator in a crowded room, all secret smiles and hushed conversations, and asks, “was it Romancing the Bone? You can be honest with me; I thought we edited that one very well. Was it?”

Antonio blinks. “No.” But before Romano can roll his eyes and pretend he needs to take a call or smoke or drink or piss or something that has to be done alone in the back room, words spill forth from Antonio’s mouth. “My favorite is Archisexture because you,” he looks Romano in the eyes, “look really happy when you’re painting the wall before the other guy comes in with the hammer, and your face relaxes when you smile for real. And it’s. And… do you like painting?”

The hell.

“Yeah,” Romano hazards, slowly, “But not canvasses or anything.”

“I could tell.”

Before Romano can say anything else, or really even process when the conversation took a turn towards, what, speed dating?, Antonio’s roommate slaps Feli on the shoulder and starts to leave. “C’mon, Toni!” he shouts, and Antonio nods at Romano, thanks him again, and then leaves as quickly as he came, like one of those summer storms that soaks to the skin.

Romano hates those.

But he doesn’t have much time to think about Antonio’s retreating back, because while the line is shorter than it was before it hasn’t cleared completely, and there are more things to sign, and names to pretend to remember, and thanks to give. Romano might remember Antonio’s name for real, though. He might not, because there are fifteen other stops on the tour. Maybe there are fifteen other Antonios out there. But maybe there’s only the one.

**Author's Note:**

> I decided doing these as a collected universe, rather than just the one story, would be easier, and therefore much more likely to happen at all. Bits of this are appropriated from [some stuff I posted to tumblr months ago](http://kixboxer.tumblr.com/post/15174484066/snippeting-it-before-i-forget-it), as well.
> 
>  **Geneva Fetish Boutique:** Switzerland owns a sex shop. Hush, it works. While she didn’t make an appearance here, Liechtenstein helps him out as a shop assistant. This causes Switzerland no end of pain and mental anguish. She seems happy, though, so there’s not much he can do.
> 
>  **Also:** so many epithets! If there’s one place that I still feel comfortable using them so much, though, it’s with characters talking to strangers and characters talking to relatives. And there was a lot of that here. Oh, and tell me if you find any dumb mistakes. This isn't as carefully read through as it could have been.
> 
>  **Double Also:** the pizza uniform thing is a nod to [this snippet I wrote on tumblr.](http://kixboxer.tumblr.com/post/15983281625/i-dont-know-if-smutparagraoh-night-is-still-ongoing)
> 
>  **Triple Also:** I cannot for the life of me think up porno names. Archisexture and Romancing the Bone are both courtesy of [cutthroatpixie](http://cutthroatpixie.livejournal.com/).


End file.
